regrets collect like old friends
by baichan
Summary: Chris Argent was terrified for both his sisters. Sequel to i can never leave the past behind


Chris Argent is afraid for both his sisters. One is bloodthirsty, a shark's grin that rivals the smirks of the wolves and never passes a chance to spill were blood.

_(they're all monsters)_

The other terrified him. She squirms at the sight of so much blood, pales every time she helps cut one of those creatures in half, would rather be reading the books and doing all the research for whatever thing they're hunting.

They're dangerous, one so close to breaking the Code and the other so sensitive about everything. He can't help but think that they'll destroy each.

He's still surprised though, when they wake one morning to find her bed empty; her closest possessions gone; and the scent of perfume still clinging to the sheets.

He remembers refusing to leave the house that day, thinking that she'd come back.

Kate curls her lips, "She was weak."

Her name becomes forbidden.

_(one night, when they're curled around each other, their injuries from a fight still aching, kate and him had talked about her_

_i hope she's happy_

_me too_

_i hope she's safe_

_she'll be fine, she's strong, she just always loved too much)_

* * *

When his daughter is born he wants to cry because all he can think about is how she doesn't look like him at all, or Victoria. His newborn looks like his youngest sister when she was just a baby. He remembers leaning over to stare at her in her crib, Kate whining in the background about wanting to play hide-and-go-seek.

_(not right now kate_

_but i wanna_

_look it's our baby sister_

_so what_

_kate, dad said we had to look out for each other_

ya whatever)

He says the name Allison and his wife smiles at him and he can't help the tear that rolled down his face.

When Stiles lays the arrow down his head starts to spin. It's an Argent, that much is for sure. The crest is engraved in a hidden spot between the arrow head and the rest and he can't help but run his thumb over it. He knows what this means and his whole being feels like it's going to cave in, like he's a sand castle collapsing under it's own weight. There's no air, no light, just the Argent arrow in his hands.

He's being yelled at by - his _nephew - _Stiles and he has his runaway sister's arrow in his hands. The name Allison that's engraved on the side, mixed with another, makes his veins ache and his chest hollow.

There is something important he has to remember though, something about Stiles and his family, something that changes everything and nothing.

His mother is dead.

* * *

All the wolves stare at him while Stiles runs _(don't run anymore, don't run from family) _and he curls his lip, waiting for one to start the rapid interrogation he's about to be on the receiving end of.

It's Allison who steps up first.

"Dad?"

Chris looks at her, looks at her eyes and her hair and her skin. She looks so much like her aunt he wants to cry like the first time he held her in his arms.

Allison looks scared and he's almost shaking but he's too old, too tired to be doing this so instead he calmly presses the arrow into her arms, he can't help but feel like it's benediction and purgatory all in the same stroke.

"This was your aunt's, your friend Stiles' mother."

Allison has her lips parted in confusion and he can't blame her.

"She wasn't like us." He says, but what he means is she wasn't like you, "She was - _soft. _She cared too much for this kind of life."

He sees the hurt in his daughter's eyes but that's the secret. Everything about his sister he had hoped for Allison.

He hoped she had been happy.

* * *

That night he goes to the cemetery. He's already seen one sister buried and his wife.

He's not sure if he _wants _to see the grave, to know that he body lies somewhere beneath all the dirt.

It isn't about wanting to though he has to, he owes her as much.

The tombstone is plain and his heart aches to see her name so impersonally carved out in stone. The 'here lies' is like a kick in the gut and he sinks down to his knees because this had been his last hope. Whatever had happened to Kate or Gerard or Victoria, _she _was supposed to stay untouched and unmarred by this ugly life.

There are footsteps behind him and a hand on his shoulder. He turns to look at Stiles and his daughter.

_Cousins. _They're cousins, family. His family.

Allison's holding cheap flowers from whatever twenty-four hour, open late shop they found. The plastic crinkles and grates on his nerves.

"She was supposed to be fine." he says quietly, voice gruff.

"It wasn't -" Stiles tries to explain, eyes soft and vulnerable.

They're all vulnerable. Chris feels the pain of this loss almost as deeply as Stiles and Allison can sympathize with the loss of a mother.

Chris understands what he's trying to say, that it wasn't the supernatural or werewolves. It's a little comforting. That her death wasn't gruesome and falsified in official reports.

He nods dumbly and reaches out, traces the name slowly with his finger.

Allison places the flowers on the grave gently. Chris watches her wet eyes and the way she tries to feel something for this stranger other than just sympathy.

He thinks Allison would have liked her. She was kind and gentle and would have been a good role model for Allison.

She must have been an amazing mother.

Chris pulls a flower out of his jacket. It's purple and beautiful and a symbol of the wolves they hunt. He places it on top of her headstone.

Wolfsbane is ceremonial for hunters and wolves alike.


End file.
